Lion's Rock is a peak in Kowloon which offers stunning vistas of Hong Kong to the hiker. The cliff face was often covered in protest signs. I felt my thumb slip into a grooves as I stood against the tree trunk. I look up and see a Chinese character written on the trunk. The same numbers began to float before my vision as I ambled down the trail, carved into tree after tree. The Prince Edward incident took place on August 31st, when police brutally beat protesters at the Prince Edward subway station.
The Yuen Long incident on July 21 involved police, protesters, and counterprotesters. The chair of the Democratic Party said that the prosecution was calling a deer a horse.
My mind went back to normal. The coffee shop in Kowloon I went to after listening to the band for months was a favorite of theirs. There was a picture of a deer captioned "this is a horse" in a shop window.
I was starting to understand how the businesses and people around me were marking themselves, how they stuck their tongues out at leaders, and howcoded interactions allowed them to seek each other out.
My acquaintances sighs, "You cannot point at a deer and call it a horse." Some weeks later, I am nodding distractedly during a conversation when my acquaintances sighs, "You cannot point at a deer and call it a horse." My eyes are moving fast. They see my face. They asked if you understood what they were saying. I said I understood. Both of us know that something important has happened between us. Conversation is usually only between the lines because of the benefits of surveilling. These gestures are much more than an act of cowardice for not speaking one's mind.
History continues because of the persistence of the trace against all odds.
The struggle of man against power is a struggle of memory. In the face of Beijing's will, this may be all that is left for the people who took to the streets three years ago. It is something. It's far from it. The only bulwark against revisionism in a city where one has to contend with doublespeak from the highest offices is learning to see. Two independent newspapers were shut down last year and their employees were arrested. The shuttering of the newspapers had nothing to do with the National Security Law, as claimed by Carrie Lam. The recent elections were a one-man race, where only one candidate stood for the office of chief executive.
Today's doublespeak in Hong Kong is not only a sprinkling of isolated incidents, but a deep reflection on the meaning of life. New textbooks for children in Hong Kong would say that the city was not a colony of Britain. After Hong Kong was returned to China, the president claimed that true democracy began. The secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs said that democracy has taken a quantum leap forward since the return to the motherland. There is a crisis of rhetoric and ideology presented by this. If Hong Kong was never a colony, what would be celebrated on July 1st? Pro-democracy activists are not consideredpatriotic. Do you know if democracy is desirable or not? Is Hong Kong the only place with one?
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